Locke's past overlaps with post

President Barack Obama on Wednesday tried for the third time to fill the vacant commerce secretary position, tapping former Washington Gov. Gary Locke for a Cabinet post that two previous nominees have backed away from.

But Locke’s post-gubernatorial efforts to drum up business for an array of companies in the rapidly expanding Chinese market may require steps to reconcile with the administration’s ethics policy.

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At a late morning press conference, Obama called Locke “the right man for this job” and asserted Locke’s background equips him to be “a tireless advocate for our economic competitiveness, and an influential ambassador for American industry who will help us do everything we can — especially now — to promote it around the world.”

Indeed, Locke’s personal story as the son of immigrants, his leadership of trade-dependent Washington state and his private sector work make him tailor-made to head the Commerce Department.

The problem is that Locke, a partner in an international law firm’s China division, has advocated for Microsoft, Starbucks, and banking, timber and shipping interests in recent years, raising potential conflicts for him as head of a department charged with promoting U.S. trade around the globe.

One of Obama’s first acts as president was to sign an executive order http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-1719.pdf barring executive branch officials for two years from working on issues “directly and substantially related” to their former clients or employers.

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Yet if he’s confirmed as commerce secretary, Chinese trade issues — including some with direct impact on the companies he went to bat for — are likely to be high on the agenda for Locke, who was the first Chinese-American governor.

Software piracy issues would rank among them. Microsoft and other software developers have lobbied both the U.S. and Chinese governments to crack down on the profit-draining practice. On a similar front, Starbucks recently won a trademark lawsuit against a Chinese company using its logo. An administration official said that Locke didn’t act as a lawyer for the companies named in this story, with the exception of Microsoft. The other companies most likely were clients of Locke’s law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, suggested the official, who did not respond to requests to release a full list of the clients Locke represented in the past two years.

“As governor of the state of Washington and later as an attorney representing U.S. companies, Gary Locke opened markets and created opportunities for American businesses overseas — critical experience for any commerce secretary,” said the official. “We are confident that Gov. Locke will be able to continue to advocate on behalf of American businesses and workers while at the same time adhering to the administration’s ethics policy.”